Your first link gives the numbers that I figured mathematically:
1.5 million
Number of inmates held in state and federal prisons at yearend 2005.
using that number, there are only 488 per 100K in Prison in the US, yet your originating link gives the number at 715. This is nearly double the number, WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR NUMBERS?
It appears to me your link of origination of the thread exaggerates their numbers.
Your second link gives this number:
March 15, 1999 show that the number of prisoners in America has more than tripled over the last two decades from 500,000 to 1.8 million
But no sourcing as to where it came from. The justice department data did not show that there were 1.8 million in prison or jail in 1999, in fact there were less than there are currently in jail at that time.
(Again, I provided links to that data from the DOJ itself above.)
Your third link:
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than two million men and women are now behind bars in the United States.1 The country that holds itself out as the "land of freedom" incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country. The human costs — wasted lives, wrecked families, troubled children — are incalculable, as are the adverse social, economic and political consequences of weakened communities, diminished opportunities for economic mobility, and extensive disenfranchisement.
(Again the data is severely exaggerated, I provided the link to the DOJ address above, and again, the first one is accurate, these are exaggerated.)
